Michael Dear is professor of City and Regional Planning at CED, and Honorary Professor in the Bartlett School of Planning at University College, London (England).

Michael’s current research focuses on comparative urbanism, and the future of the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. He is also co-editing a volume on transdisciplinary work in geography and the humanities. He has recently taught courses on urban theory, the state, social theory, and the borderlands.

Michael was founding editor of the scholarly journal Society and Space: Environment & Planning D, and is a leading exponent of the Los Angeles School of Urbanism. His books include: From Chicago to LA: making sense of urban theory, Postborder City: cultural spaces of Bajalta California, and The Postmodern Urban Condition, which was chosen by CHOICE magazine as an “Outstanding Academic Title” in 2000. His latest edited volume, entitled Geohumanties: Art, History, Text at the Edge of Place, will be published by Routledge in 2010.

Michael has been a Guggenheim Fellowship holder, a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, and Fellow at the Rockefeller Center in Bellagio, Italy. He has received the highest honors for creativity and excellence in research from the Association of American Geographers, and numerous undergraduate teaching and graduate mentorship awards.

He has been engaged in professional planning practice in Australia, Britain, Canada, and the United States, where his work has focused on homelessness.